Tone Almhjell

The blurb on the back of The Twistrose Key spoke of everything I like: a Chosen Child uses a mysterious key to slip through a door to another world that is filled with anthropomorphic friendly animals and mythological creatures, and because of a prophecy must go on a quest to perform some important task and save that world. It was inevitable that I would love this book, and I did.

The allusions to other beloved children's fantasy books are plentiful and obvious, but handled so well that they do not detract from the story. Chosen ones and mysterious keys to magical doors that lead to fantasy worlds are so plentiful I don't have to give you any examples. The frozen land of Sylver with its talking animals is obviously Narnia, while the Snow Queen and Puss in Boots make appearances. There are more references, but I won't list them all so you can be surprised when you read it. It's not 'done' or derivative, however; it just feels familiar in the best way.

This book was so good! I'm definitely going to get my hands on everything Tone Almhjell writes. I think The Twistrose Key is the first in a series, and I am so excited to read the rest!… (meer)

I was drawn to the beautiful cover on this book and found the premise intriguing. I actually started reading this out loud with my 11 year old son. He thought it was “creepy and boring” and wanted to stop reading it after the first few chapters. I ended up finishing it on my own and have to agree; the story moved slow and was boring.

Additionally I struggled with the characters; they didn’t have much personality and didn’t really engage me as a reader. I thought the fact that the main animal (Lin’s lost pet) was a red backed vole was weird and hard to relate to. The story was very predictable as well.

It wasn’t all bad. There is some beautiful description throughout but this was strangely offset by a very simplistic writing structure. The story does a dark fairy tale feel to it which I kind of enjoyed. However, this dark fairy tale vibe is coupled with life size pets, which feels a bit contradictory at times Neither me or my son liked the fact that the cats in here are portrayed as evil (we are big cat fans in my household).

Overall this was okay but not great. I don’t plan on reading more by Almhjell. The story just moved too slowly, was too predictable, and was full of characters that were bland and uninspiring.… (meer)